LUMC Pride Seminar

Today, I will be giving a keynote lecture at the Leiden University Medical Center. Join us!

“We are proud to present Professor dr. Jojanneke van der Toorn from Leiden University who will give a lecture regarding LGBT Workplace Inclusion.

More and more organisations acknowledge the importance of an inclusive workspace that accommodates sexual orientation and gender identity. This workspace is hard to realize since an apparently tolerant space is often in fact not so tolerant at all. Persons who support equal rights, can disapprove of a transgender colleague or make remarks that are (unintentionally) hurtful about homosexuality. To promote inclusion of lesbian, homosexual, bisexual and transgender employees (LGBTs) at work, knowledge of the social psychological mechanisms that are the foundation to their stigmatisation is needed. To determine what works, we need to know why something else does not work. This is the added value of a scientific approach. Jojanneke van der Toorn discusses the psychological processes that stand in the way of a truly inclusive workspace for LGBTs and what we can learn from them to find practical solutions. Because inclusivity offers opportunities for both employees and organisations.”

Leiden University has a network!

Last night, we celebrated the official inauguration of Leiden University’s LGBT+ Employee Network. Congratulations everyone! I look forward to making inspiring new connections and to working together toward an inclusive workplace.

Also see this nice article in Leidsch Dagblad

Pride Amsterdam 2018

This week I had the pleasure of attending a conference and of partying on a boat in the Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade, both organized by the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights.

To be LGBTI is a human right
Alderman Marieke van Doorninck opened the conference by stressing the importance of diversity for the city of Amsterdam. Then sociologist Jan Willem Duyvendak explained the term homonationalism, and argued that viewing LGBTI acceptance as typically Dutch polarizes the debate. Boris Dittrich moderated the afternoon which also included contributions by Marja Lust (Police), Annelies Tukker (Nederlandse organisatie voor seksediversiteit), Isjed Ijaz Hussain (Stichting Prisma Groep & Veilige Haven) en Milan Hendriks (transgender). I gave a flash lecture on LGBT workplace inclusion.

Panelist on Gender-Neutral Language Use

On June 28, the LGBT Network of Leiden University hosted a panel discussion on gender-neutral language use: “He, she or they: how should the university refer to you?”. Together with the audience and three experts from Leiden University, Dick Smakman, Eliza Steinbock, and Caroline van Overbeeke, we discussed the importance of inclusive communication in the university, in which areas we tend to run into binary language usage, and how we may start to address this.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Book Presentation World of Difference

On June 29th, at SPUI 25, we launched our newest book “World of Difference”, an edited volume with contributions by Naomi Ellemers, Belle Derks, Daan Scheepers, Félice van Nunspeet and myself, resulting from the multidisciplinary Lorentz workshop on the Morality of Inequality.

Van der Toorn, J. (2017). Education and work. In: Ellemers, N., Derks, B., Van Nunspeet, F., Scheepers, D. T., & Van der Toorn, J. (Eds.). World of difference: A moral perspective on social inequality (pp. 39-62). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Ellemers, N., Derks, B., Van Nunspeet, F., Scheepers, D. T., & Van der Toorn, J. (2017). World of difference: A moral perspective on social inequality. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. SPUI 25, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Adam Hahn shares his latest work

On June 21st, social psychologist Adam Hahn from the University of Cologne shared his latest work with us at Utrecht University: some very interesting studies showing that implicit evaluations is not as unconscious as we have taken them to be.

Literature review on Effective Diversity Interventions

Together with Dr. Florien Cramwinckel (Utrecht University) and Prof.dr. Daan Scheepers (Leiden University), I published a review paper discussing the determinants and configurations of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Prejudice (SOGIP), as well as ways to measure it. We reviewed the recent social psychological literature on SOGIP-reducing interventions, identified scientific knowledge gaps regarding these interventions, and offer recommendations on how to apply the available knowledge to real-life situations.

We just received the exciting news that our paper was in the Top 20 Most Downloaded Papers for having received some of the most downloads in the 12 months following online publication between January 2017 and December 2018.

Keynote at AEGEE Equal Rights Conference: True Colours

I had the privilege to give the opening speech at the AEGEE Equal Rights Conference “True Colours”, which was hosted in Leiden from the 24th until the 27th of May. The program was filled with interesting workshops and lectures, focused on the themes of religion and sexual orientation, and feminism and the legal recognition of homosexuality.

Image Credit: AEGEE Leiden

Photo Credit: AEGEE Leiden

Alliances for Solidarity: IDAHOT at Booking.com

May 17th is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT). This year, IDAHOT focused on “Alliances for Solidarity”, with the central aim of building bridges between people and organizations ensure safety and support the most vulnerable groups. To this end, I was in invited by booking.com to give a talk about LGBT inclusion at work .

Image Credit: https://may17.org/worldwide-lgbt-organisations-elect-alliances-for-solidarity-as-2018-global-theme/

Inaugural speech on LGBT Workplace Inclusion

On April 6th, I held my inaugural speech to mark my appointment as Professor on LGBT Workplace Inclusion at Leiden University. It was a festive occasion and I was very pleased to see how much interest there is in the topic. Besides family, friends and colleagues, the audience consisted of interested parties from industry, government and civil society.

Read the speech here (in Dutch): “Naar een Inclusieve Werkvloer: Seksuele Orientatie en Gender Identiteit op het Werk” or here (in English): “Toward an Inclusive Workplace: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity at Work”